USDC

CODE_HEIST

For USDT or USDC, the main thing is making sure the wallet supports the chain you actually use. The token is not enough. USDT on Ethereum, Tron, Solana, Arbitrum, etc. are different networks. Sending to the wrong chain is where people get into trouble. Ledger and Trezor are common cold-wallet options, but I would decide based on chain support, recovery process, and how comfortable you are doing a small test transfer first. Always test with a tiny amount before moving the real balance.

Sorry_Cheetah_2230

What does it look like from a merchant side though, is it worth it to offer it for such a small percentage of people to pay with it? If all we are going to be able to use is UDST/USDC then there’s no real difference between it and a regular debit card.

Fuzzy-Combination808

As a fellow 2021 holder, do NOT sleep on the tax implications of spending BTC directly. Every coffee you buy is technically a capital gains tax event. If you want the absolute easiest way without moving funds back to a CEX, look into **Self-Custody cards (like MetaMask Card / Gnosis Pay)** or **Crypto-backed credit cards (like Nexo)** where you borrow against your BTC instead of selling it. Just keep in mind that pure BTC mainnet spending isn't a thing due to gas/speed, so you’ll likely need to hold some stables (USDC) or wrapped assets on an L2/EVM chain to link with those cards. It’s still 10x better than the old 'convert-and-wait-3-days-for-withdrawal' nightmare.

TeslaOwn

Stablecoin support is probably the biggest thing for everyday use. I wouldn’t want to spend BTC casually because of volatility and tax tracking. USDT or USDC spending makes way more sense for normal purchases.

BTCintermfasting

No, you don’t, it’s called buy, borrow, die. You never pay it back you borrow a certain amount and then you do curse of looping. I started doing this a few cycles ago and that led me to early retirement. Literally anyone can do it. I even convince a McDonald’s worker to do it. Who only had $400 extra per month back in 2020 she now has 240 K worth of BTC and she balls about 3000 a month which is lower than 25% LTV every month. She doesn’t bother during midterm years because I told her that that’s when you don’t borrow and she just transfers it to USDC so she can live off the yield.

Serenaded

Lol, no. You withdraw the USDC into Polygon or ETH, then you use a tumbler to turn into Monero and you've disappeared. And vice versa. It's actually very easily UNtrackable.

Salamandrine88

Drift and rsETH were the actual stress test and CeFi held up because their risk isn't recursive the way DeFi composability is. When one protocol blows up contagion runs through everything that accepted it as collateral. Pulled my borrowing off Aave after rsETH, moved to Bybit Loans for USDC against BTC. Fixed rate, no contagion path. Trade-off is custody but fine for borrowed positions Tether contracting for the first time since 2018 is the data point that actually matters. Real deleveraging at institutional level

gCAN9

I've been using etherfi for a long time now and really happy with them. 3% instant on-chain cashback in USDC and ETH. And around 5% yield on funds (historically 10% but it has gone down as yields generally decreased in the market - still great getting yield + cashback on money you'd spend anyway) I posted a review on X earlier today [https://x.com/gCAN9k/status/2059581190827368841](https://x.com/gCAN9k/status/2059581190827368841)

stormaxis26

i went through a similar exchange journey and honestly the fee frustration with Coinbase is real especially on a smaller account where every dollar counts worth giving Nexo another look if you left a while back as the platform has evolved a lot and the earn rates on USDC are competitive without needing a subscription fee on top. buying and swapping fees are also way more reasonable than Coinbase's spread which adds up fast when you're making regular moves on a smaller balance the combination of earning yield on your holdings while you wait for target prices AND lower fees on trades makes it genuinely useful for exactly what you're describing. might be worth checking what's changed since you last used it before committing to Coinbase One

JordonHudsonsSideBro

>torch billions of his ADA Its crazy Cardano has all these wild side quests where mountains of money get burnt (the Cardano conferences are also a large spend), yet their community was in civil war over forking over $10M to Circle to get native USDC issued on chain back in the day.

alexlovesbitcoin

Yes i’m currently doing that. I’m running on a 30 percent LTV & just making monthly payments. I tried to do the traditional loan from a bank, but Inwas getting denied for what I was asking for & or they were charging so much interest. Currently running this morpho loan through coinbase and the whole process has been super smooth + the loan in USDC showed up in about a minute. Any questions you can ask me here directly in the reply

ANIAT444

I used USDC to top up on last downturn. LTV response was instant - 80% > 50% in seconds.

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Post is by: Impressive_Zucchini8 and the url/text [ ](https://goo.gl/GP6ppk)is: /r/CryptoMarkets/comments/1todsy9/i_built_an_ai_copilot_for_crypto_research_because/ Hey everyone. I've been in crypto for years — farming yields, sniping breakouts, running deep on-chain due diligence. And I kept running into the same problem over and over. Every time I wanted to research a token, I'd open: - Dune for on-chain data - Arkham for wallet tracking - DexScreener for price charts - Twitter for sentiment - Etherscan for contract audits - Maybe a few more tools depending on what I was looking for By the time I stitched everything together, the opportunity was gone. The whale had already moved. The pump had already started. I was always playing catch-up. I asked myself: what if I could just ask? What if I could type "whale alert for ETH addresses holding >$1M USDC" and get real-time alerts? What if I could say "analyze this token for honeypot risk" and get a full security audit in seconds? What if I could deploy an agent that watches the market while I sleep? So I built heyRISA. It's not a chatbot. It's an AI co-pilot for crypto intelligence. **What it does:** - **Conversational research** — Ask questions in plain English. "Show me the top 10 wallets holding this token" or "What's the liquidity breakdown across DEXs?" The AI pulls real-time on-chain data and gives you a clear answer. - **Agentic monitoring** — Deploy agents that watch specific wallets, track whale movements, and alert you when something matters. Set it and forget it. - **200+ chains** — Not just Ethereum. We index across Solana, Base, Polygon, Avalanche, and emerging ecosystems where early alpha lives. - **Security audits** — Detect honeypots, analyze contract code, and flag risky wallets before you ape in. **How it works:** 1. Go to heyrisa dot com 2. Start chatting — no account needed for the first 5 messages 3. Ask anything. The AI will pull on-chain data, run analysis, and give you actionable insights. **Free tier:** We're giving everyone 5 free chats daily. No credit card, no BS. Just try it. **Airdrop:** We're also running a $RISA airdrop. Complete quests (follow us on X, join Telegram, chat with the AI, invite friends) to earn RISA Points. Top holders get whitelist priority, higher caps at TGE, and 24h early access. **Why I'm sharing this:** I know there are a lot of AI tools in crypto right now. Most of them are wrappers or hype. This is different. We built the tool we wished existed when we were actually trading. We use it every day. It's saved us hours of research and helped us catch alpha we would have missed. If you're tired of the tab-switching grind, give it a shot. It's free. If you hate it, no harm done. If you love it, you'll never go back to the old way. **Feedback welcome.** This is v1. We're shipping fast and iterating daily. If you try it and have thoughts — good or bad — drop a comment. I'm reading everything. Built for degen traders who value their time. 🚀 --- **TL;DR:** Built an AI co-pilot for crypto research. Ask questions in plain English, get real-time on-chain analysis. 5 free chats daily. $RISA airdrop live. Search for heyrisa. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CryptoMarkets) if you have any questions or concerns.*

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Post is by: Impressive_Zucchini8 and the url/text [ ](https://goo.gl/GP6ppk)is: /r/CryptoMarkets/comments/1todqko/i_built_an_ai_copilot_for_crypto_research_because/ Hey everyone. I've been in crypto for years — farming yields, sniping breakouts, running deep on-chain due diligence. And I kept running into the same problem over and over. Every time I wanted to research a token, I'd open: \- Dune for on-chain data \- Arkham for wallet tracking \- DexScreener for price charts \- Twitter for sentiment \- Etherscan for contract audits \- Maybe a few more tools depending on what I was looking for By the time I stitched everything together, the opportunity was gone. The whale had already moved. The pump had already started. I was always playing catch-up. I asked myself: what if I could just ask? What if I could type "whale alert for ETH addresses holding >$1M USDC" and get real-time alerts? What if I could say "analyze this token for honeypot risk" and get a full security audit in seconds? What if I could deploy an agent that watches the market while I sleep? So I built heyRISA. It's not a chatbot. It's an AI co-pilot for crypto intelligence. \*\*What it does:\*\* \- \*\*Conversational research\*\* — Ask questions in plain English. "Show me the top 10 wallets holding this token" or "What's the liquidity breakdown across DEXs?" The AI pulls real-time on-chain data and gives you a clear answer. \- \*\*Agentic monitoring\*\* — Deploy agents that watch specific wallets, track whale movements, and alert you when something matters. Set it and forget it. \- \*\*200+ chains\*\* — Not just Ethereum. We index across Solana, Base, Polygon, Avalanche, and emerging ecosystems where early alpha lives. \- \*\*Security audits\*\* — Detect honeypots, analyze contract code, and flag risky wallets before you ape in. \*\*How it works:\*\* 1. Go to \[heyrisa.com\](https://heyrisa.com) 2. Start chatting — no account needed for the first 5 messages 3. Ask anything. The AI will pull on-chain data, run analysis, and give you actionable insights. \*\*Free tier:\*\* We're giving everyone 5 free chats daily. No credit card, no BS. Just try it. \*\*Airdrop:\*\* We're also running a $RISA airdrop. Complete quests (follow us on X, join Telegram, chat with the AI, invite friends) to earn RISA Points. Top holders get whitelist priority, higher caps at TGE, and 24h early access. \*\*Why I'm sharing this:\*\* I know there are a lot of AI tools in crypto right now. Most of them are wrappers or hype. This is different. We built the tool we wished existed when we were actually trading. We use it every day. It's saved us hours of research and helped us catch alpha we would have missed. If you're tired of the tab-switching grind, give it a shot. It's free. If you hate it, no harm done. If you love it, you'll never go back to the old way. \*\*Links:\*\* \- 🌐 \[heyrisa.com\](https://heyrisa.com) \- ⚡ \[app.heyrisa.com\](https://app.heyrisa.com) \- 📚 \[docs.heyrisa.com\](https://docs.heyrisa.com) \- 🎯 \[Earn $RISA\](https://app.heyrisa.com/earn) \- 🐦 \[X: u/heyrisacom\](https://x.com/heyrisacom) \- 📱 \[Telegram\](https://t.me/heyrisacom) \*\*Feedback welcome.\*\* This is v1. We're shipping fast and iterating daily. If you try it and have thoughts — good or bad — drop a comment. I'm reading everything. Built for degen traders who value their time. 🚀 \--- \*\*TL;DR:\*\* Built an AI co-pilot for crypto research. Ask questions in plain English, get real-time on-chain analysis. 5 free chats daily. $RISA airdrop live. \[heyrisa.com\](https://heyrisa.com) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CryptoMarkets) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Dedsnotdead

There’s an enormous amount of inconsistency with Banks. I had to sell significantly more than that, think a multiple of 10, in order to pay HMRC (UK tax) The sale, conversion to USDC and then GBP and finally off-ramp to my bank was straight forward. Aside from several test transactions and my general caution (ok, paranoia) about address poisoning everything went well. The money cleared in my U.K. bank account and I then immediately transferred what I owed for capital gains to the tax man. It was a pain free process. That was at the end of January, in April I took profit and carried out the same process. The funds were frozen and I spent three days going back and forth before the funds were cleared. Ironically one of my key arguments was to point out that they had no problem clearing funds and allowing my transfer to pay Capital gains tax to HMRC. It’s difficult for banks to adhere to compliance that is quietly anti-crypto. But even so, “computer says no” is still very much the case for me.

Realistic_Fee_00001

>So, I've been wondering if it's a good idea to sell art using cryptocurrencies Yes. >like USDT or USDC, No. If you really want to use sound p2p cash you have to look into Bitcoin Cash and Monero. They are easy to use. Do not use the centralized, inflating unsound USTD and UDSC chains.

MediumLibrarian7100

Ily bro but stables and tokenised equities growing doesn’t refute anything that’s exactly the point. They’re institutional infrastructure money flowing through USDT/USDC treasuries and Ondo/BlackRock products. That all stays concentrated in majors and compliant yield layers. It expands the captured liquidity pipes without breaking out into the old retail driven cascade down the cap table 🤷‍♂️ That’s why we get elevated BTC dominance and no real alt season anymore…

mrjune2040

I don’t get what you mean by ‘you’re not sure where to do it’. If a collector wants your work and actually wants to pay you in crypto, invoice them with your Eth address as payment method and have them pay you in USDC etc. It’s not rocket science.

BiscuitInFlight

The 'any other crypto' statement is inherently false. Bitcoin, Solana, ethereum, USDC, XRP (to name a few) have real-world uses, not only in blockchain solving, but also in lowering transaction costs for banks, security, and tethering. Shib is a meme. A husk full of dead promises. The kid that peaked in high school.

btc_set_me_free

Why is the APY on aave 1.28-313% for USDC on version 4, but 3.67 on version 3? Where's the incentive?

LateNeverr1

same thing happened gradually and i only noticed when i went back after maybe 8 months off. bybit's unified balance thing actually broke my brain a bit USDC sitting there earning 4-5% flexible, same balance collateral for perps if i wanted. like when did that become one product the "ecosystem" framing is real btw. it's less "exchange with extras" and more the extras are quietly becoming the main thing burnout from futures is so specific too. it's not tired-tired, it's like the reward circuitry just stops firing

Cultural-Candy3219

Your read of the risk is reasonable. USDC yield can be useful, but I would not treat it as a high yield savings account with different branding. You are taking issuer risk, platform risk, redemption policy risk, and sometimes partner or lending risk depending on how that yield is produced. The Coinbase wording is basically the important distinction: they can give retail users a convenient on/off-ramp, but Circle is the issuer and direct redemption access is not the same as having a Circle Mint account. In normal markets that may not matter much. For money you mentally classify as savings, it matters because your exit path is still exchange liquidity plus banking rails if you cannot redeem directly with the issuer. A practical compromise is to size it like fintech/counterparty exposure, not like insured cash. Keep emergency money in boring bank products even if the rate is lower, use USDC yield only for the slice where a temporary freeze or withdrawal delay would not break your plan, and test both directions occasionally: bank to exchange to USDC, then USDC back to dollars and back to your bank. Also check whether the quoted yield is coming from Coinbase incentives, lending, or some third-party arrangement, because the same USDC balance can sit on very different risk stacks.

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Post is by: 0xfima and the url/text [ ](https://goo.gl/GP6ppk)is: /r/CryptoMarkets/comments/1tmecei/163m_sent_to_alreadyblacklisted_usdtusdc_wallets/ We analyzed every USDT and USDC blacklist event on TRON and Ethereum in 2026 and found that **$163M was sent to wallets that were already frozen** by Tether or Circle. That money is permanently lost. Key findings:   \- 847 transactions hit known blacklisted addresses after the ban was executed   \- TRON accounts for \~80% of lost funds   \- Most losses happen within 48 hours after a ban — before word gets around   \- OTC desks and P2P traders are hit hardest The data comes from on-chain monitoring of AddedBlackList/DestroyedBlackFunds events on both networks. Happy to answer questions about methodology. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CryptoMarkets) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Obtusk22

half the time the causation ran the other way anyway, BTC pumped first and retail printed USDT to chase. inflow showed up after. real change is liquidity destination. new stables now park in T-bill products or sit as ETF settlement collateral that never touches the book. its not that outflows absorb inflows, the inflow isnt the same money anymore. watched the Bybit USDC depth in mid-April, bid stacks were yield-parked, gone the second funding dipped.

Cultural-Candy3219

For a small account I’d separate two decisions: where you buy, and where you actually want to keep funds. The cheapest exchange is not automatically the place I’d leave a meaningful balance for months. If Coinbase is the one you already trust, use Advanced with limit orders before paying for Coinbase One. The simple buy flow is where the spread usually hurts. Coinbase One only really makes sense if your actual monthly fees saved are more than the subscription, not because the USDC yield happens to offset it on paper. That yield is still exchange/platform exposure, not a bank account. Before moving size to any new venue, do a boring test: deposit a small amount, buy, withdraw to your own wallet, then withdraw cash back to your bank if that is part of your plan. If support, emails, or withdrawals are flaky at $50, they will feel much worse when the market is moving and you care about timing. So my default would be: keep the trusted venue for fiat rails, use limit orders to reduce fee/spread pain, test any alternative with tiny amounts first, and do not let yield or lower fees talk you into keeping more funds on an exchange than you need.

Cultural-Candy3219

I don’t think the functionality dream is completely dead, but the bar is way higher than it was in the 2021 “put a coin on every idea” era. A lot of useful crypto things exist now: stablecoin payments, DEXs, lending markets, perps, bridges, wallets that regular people can actually use, tokenized assets, cheap settlement on faster chains. The problem is that “the product is useful” and “this token should capture value” are not the same thing. Plenty of apps can be useful while the token is just governance theater, emissions for liquidity, or a way to fund the team. Holders learned that the hard way. For me the question is: does the token have a job that cannot be replaced by ETH, SOL, USDC, or app fees? If the answer is only “community” or “future ecosystem,” I’d be skeptical. If it pays for scarce resources, secures the network, has real fee demand, or controls something users actually need, then at least there is a case. So yeah, the random-alt era is probably cooked. The useful-infrastructure era is not. It just does not automatically make every related coin a good investment.

jekpopulous2

Looks like a major vault rebalancing at the end of each daily epoch… likely using a flash loan to borrow USDC, swap it for more collateral, and put the USDC back. When utilization spikes the borrow APY and supply APY both shoot way up. Arbitrage bots see the supply yield shoot up and rush in for the profits so the utilization rate drops back to it’s baseline in a few minutes. Not sure what contract this is but my breast guess would be Instadapp or Ethena.

jimi22

Seconding kirakirazeno's point about sports/gaming being massively underserved — that's where things get interesting. Most of the alpha right now is in niche verticals that Polymarket won't touch. A few worth looking at depending on what you're after: **Manifold** is still the best for weird/experimental stuff, community-created markets on anything. **Azuro** is doing sports at the protocol layer, more infrastructure than product. **Overtime Markets** built on top of it with a cleaner UX. **Limitless** is interesting if you want the AI-counterparty mechanic you mentioned from Prophet but more structured. The one I've been watching lately is **Hotaku** — it's specifically focused on esports (CS2, LoL, VALORANT, Dota 2,AOE2,..), non-custodial on Solana with USDC, no KYC, and instant settlement. Still early but the fact that it's targeting esports specifically rather than trying to be everything means the market quality is actually decent. They have a public API too which is a nice signal that it's built to be composable, not just a frontend. The OP's point about knowing social context being the edge resonates hard in esports — roster moves, patch notes, team meta. That's information most PM traders don't have but esports communities do.

ManufacturerDry8071

Do you also hold a large amount of USDC and participate in DeFi projects?

Far-Photograph-2342

Honestly stablecoins are what make crypto cards feel actually usable day to day 😅 Spending volatile assets always feels weird psychologically, but spending USDC/USDT starts feeling a lot closer to normal banking, just faster and more global.

Hannahshear

USDT/USDC on a major L2

ShipMysterious7602

Recently started using Tangem Pay. Love how they integrated the card account into the wallet. This means you can have all your funds in a cold wallet and only push over what you need to the card as and when you need it. Also, the funds you push to the card is in USDC so you never touch fiat until you use the card. You spend USDC and the merchant gets his fiat. Card limits are also very generous at this stage with a load capacity of $50k max but a loading of $100k per day and up to 24 loads a day. Annual spend limit is set at $10m which is way more than any other card I have looked at or used. It's still in beta though. Currently you can only fund the card in USDY Polygon which is a bit of a headache. Yes it's cheap but I feel USDC Tron (TRC-20) would have been a better choice as it's already so widely integrated with brokers and the like. Tangem has however said they will look at including more payment methods in future so let's see where this goes. Also, at present only virtual cards are available. From what I've read, physical cards are on their way and already being tested in Europe. ATM limits are on the low side but for me personally, this is not an issue. I want a card where I will not run into limits while spending and a virtual card is just fine as it works with Google Wallet/Apple pay. Forgot, no fees on the card account and the exchange rate they use if you spend in anything other than USD is Visa's rate + 1% which is not bad at all. So no major markup of the rate. I think Tangem has done a great job with the card account integrated right into your cold wallet on the app.

MiaTaude589

I use a stablecoin card for travel when I don't want to deal with forex fees. the taxable event thing is real but if you're spending USDC at close to its peg the gains are basically zero, non-issue in practice. the main value is speed when moving across countries, not the rewards

CaffeineComaMode

$100k unsecured credit shifts the math. If you can float six figures interest-free for 30 days every cycle, the borrow-against-crypto pitch is weaker for someone in your position. But the point here is that not everybody has the same options as you (myself included). For some people a loan at single-digit APR against their own assets is the better borrowing option that doesn't involve selling. The "interest-free" part of a credit card also vanishes the moment you carry balance. Then it's 20%+ APR. Crypto-backed loans stay flat. As for stable - you're right, they functionally are just e-dollars. But what you're missing is yield. I hold EURx (digital euros) for monthly spending and it earns \~6%. My USDC savings earn \~9.5%. That's the part you can't replicate with USD in a checking account. Spending balance isn't dead capital between purchases, and the savings side outperforms any bank rate by a wide margin. That's what's actually being achieved.

michaelcyckle

+1 for Ethfi. Bank deposits into USDC, 3% on all purchases in WETH, low fees to trade back into USDC. They also often run promotions with increased cashback. Can share a referral link if anyone wants to try.

WiseSmartTree

You cannot look at things in isolation. First off, XRP and BTC are tracking with each other. As BTC drops, so does XRP and vice versa. XRP has NOT been at the same price for 8 years … Go look at the charts. Secondly, both BTC and XRP have a crossing of 200 and 50 day averages. Expect a drop in both prices and take it as a sign to buy when the price drops. Thirdly, these are both good coins to hold onto long term. So buy what you can when the price drops. When the price spikes, sell 25% to 50% of it, and wait for the next drop. Lastly, this is not financial advice, but a bit of education about the market movement. My state of mind is actually very positive. And I am expecting to buy both coins in the near future. Another thing you can do, is put up both coins in liquidity pools against USDC for instance and make money on a portion of your holdings every day. You just have to understand that it never was buy and hold forever because it is going to the moon.

Traditional-Ebb-8380

Nothing you can do but report it to the fbi and move on. The exact same thing happened to me in July of 2025. Hackers from Yemen. $66k in USDC just gone.

Toshoshi0x0

That’s a fucking scam big dawg. No reason they can’t pay you in USDC. It’s so easy to swap that shit even for a noob.

Kaavyatheexplorer

Yes its in USDC, and

xomox2012

This absolutely sounds like scam. If they owe you a debt, force them to pay you in fiat or tell them you will accept USDC via coinbase only. Don't use any coinbase link from anyone else. Go to the site on your own directly.

Xennenial

What do you mean stablecoin issuers are not trusted? Look at USDC. It is issued by Bank of New York Mellon. They back their stablecoins 1 to 1 with US treasury bonds and they are independently audited every year to prove it. Traditional banks do not have reserves anywhere close to 1 to 1. Many traditional banks only have 3% reserves.

Xennenial

I don't understand why they are threatened by stablecoins though. They could easily incorporate stablecoins into their own operations or even mint and issue their own stablecoins. The overwhelming majority of stablecoins are Tether and USDC which are issued by actual banks.

CommanderStrident

At [Surge.Credit](http://Surge.Credit), we put Bitcoin collateral into a taproot vault in the borrowers wallet and use that for collateral on the USDC that is drawn. About as close as your can get I think.

Ogun21

USDC and then BTC. Nothing else matters

Medical_Link_691

USDC

Few_Mention8426

when you say you traced transactions through multiple swaps... unless this was certain coins..., there is no way of proving the USDC or whatever token it was is the same token that ends up at the exchange, especially if its through multiple transactions.

cryptolipto

Nope. They’re using USDC over the x402 network

Atmacrush

Yeah... this is why I don't try to earn yields on defi. I have a small amount of USDC lent on Coinbase, but other than BTC is the way.

MrCullingsworth

And it’s obvious when the top 3 American investment conglomerates literally can’t get their greedy (scared) hands on enough of this stuff. Also, say bye bye to fiat and the global swift rails system and say hello to USDC and tokenized everything. Your social security, your birth certificate, your passport, your wallet, your life. Even when we finally get it, there’s more we understand, the more questions we will have.

VeryGrumpySchnauzer

Exponentially more utility? Interesting… what else other than functioning as a currency (USDC, USDT and Ethereum can do that too)? Bitcoin payment p2p takes at least 10min… EVM bring that down to seconds. Not to mention the fees. Ethereum’s smart contracts give much more room for utility development in crypto than Bitcoin. A real new digital decentralised financial system can be developed. Bitcoin will always be the OG. But I wouldn’t say they “dont seem to serve any function”.

brb_im_lagging

You definately did a cross chain swap Cross chain swaps are always extremely bad value Ideally you want to swap on the same chain, then bridge. If there is no matching bridge then you might have to swap to a common token (eth, USDC) then bridge that Nearly always there will be a free bridge option, eg withdrawing to binance then withdrawing to the destination chain, or using their official eth bridge of there is one At no point should your fee ever be more than 0.3%

crimzyn1

You can’t actually “trade on a CEX while keeping funds on your hardware wallet,” because trading on a CEX inherently requires the funds to be in the exchange’s custody during the trade. I don’t know if any way around that, but maybe some support integration that I don’t know about. However, it is 100% feasible to send funds to/from a hardware wallet and a CEX. All exchanges I’ve used let you send funds you’ve acquired to a wallet hash. Many do have a hold if you just deposited. P.S. I like RobinHood for my on-ramp since there is no hold for smaller dollar amounts. I can buy my USDC and immediately send to my wallet with no hold. Also no ACH fee. Once on wallet, I use DEX primarily as the fees are almost always smaller (in my experience) than CEX. Watch for slippage obviously.

Atmacrush

I'm lending my USDC and that's still available even if the Clarity passes.

Routine-Weird4284

That's a really valid concern. Even I didn't think of it like that. We make our profit in USDT/USDC, but you can't directly spend it.

Savings-Leading4618

I knew it, they just don't want us to become rich by holding stablecoins. To hell with my 25x long on USDC.

No-Seat-3992

I went down this rabbit hole last year and it got messy fast. We tried letting one investor wire USDC and just priced the round in USD; the docs (YC SAFE) still referenced dollars, and counsel added a short rider saying token value at time of receipt is the legal amount. The headaches were KYC/AML and tax: our lawyer made us treat it like in-kind payment, record FX at the time of transfer, and convert to fiat quickly to avoid balance-sheet volatility. When we experimented with a token warrant on top (similar to a SAFT) it doubled the legal bill and freaked out more traditional investors, so we dropped it. What worked best for us was: standard equity docs in USD, optional stablecoin payment, immediate conversion, and super clear language that protects you if the chain/exchange goes sideways. AngelList handled this ok; Pulley and Carta were fine once we logged everything in fiat, and Pulse for Reddit actually helped me dig up older founder/legal threads on this exact setup that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise after trying random Discords and Twitter searches.

TRASHTALKINGCOCKSTAR

Me either. I thought it was convenient and used my USDC in Coinbase as a HYSA. Guess I’ll be changing to a traditional HYSA. :(

Important_Divide5403

Ive seen this done with Rolexes. Some greymarket dealers take USDT/USDC , Take the watch back, sell it for “similar” value in your native currency. Might take a bit of a loss, but Ive seen it be done

devCheckingIn

My banks pay essentially higher yields than what USDC offers on Coinbase. You don't have to put your money in non-interest bearing accounts.

Wise-Statistician172

Trump is going to use failure of the CLARITY Act as a *sledge-cudgel* against the Dems at midterms. All he needs is Bessent and Warsh to hammer home the *fact* that the Dems pushed tens of trillions of dollars offshore because they wanted to pwn the Trump sons. Devs will just continue to code outside of the US, and Dubai will host all the stablecoin providers who want to offer “rewards”. “All of that stablecoin… trillions and trillions of dollars in beautiful USDC and beautiful beautiful USDT that *would have* paid down our national debt… in the hands of our great Middle Eastern ally… and they’re a great ally… and they’re *rich*, ohhhhh they’re *RICH*… we’re selling them F-35s and B-2s now because ohhhhh they’re have *a lotta* money!… because Pocahontas and the rest of the Dems don’t like you to get 4 and a half percent on *your money in your savings account*….” -Trump October 2026

CFTA83

USDT has been delisted and banned in Europe and several more places. It might be easier to exchange USDT to USDC and then sell to cash. Open an account with Wise or N26 to withdraw from Binance and then send the money to your normal bank account. It would have helped if you stared which country you are in.

Prestigious_Deal3629

yeah, fair point. i pulled order book snapshots for AAPLx on solana vs AAPL on nasdaq — the MEXC book is thin ($200k at best bid/ask) but the raydium pools have more depth. here's the quick check i ran: \`\`\`python import requests \# raydium liquidity pools for AAPLx-USDC r = requests.get("https://api.raydium.io/v2/main/pools") pools = \[p for p in r.json() if "AAPL" in p\["name"\] and "USDC" in p\["name"\]\] print(\[(p\["name"\], float(p\["liquidity"\])) for p in pools\]) \`\`\` on a weekend when nasdaq is closed, the raydium pool had \~$2.3M liquidity. not deep enough for >$50k orders without moving the mid, but fine for retail sizing. the real issue is the spread widens to 0.15-0.25% on weekends vs 0.02% during US hours — so you're paying for the 24/7 access.

cryptolipto

Yes staking is not considered “idle” so you can legally earn yield staking ethereum for example. It’s simply holding USDC in a coinbase account that will initially be not viable, but I bet you coinbase will find some workaround to deliver yield on USDC for their customers. Maybe it will come from a Morpho vault or Aave lending. We shall see

biba8163

Sheep kept on bleating Stablecoins and RWAs. Stablecoin marketcap has 3X since 2021 while ETH price is 1/2 what it was and ETH mainnet fees are down -90% since then. I was laughed at by ETH investors making this point in 2024 who thought $10K ETH was on the menu. Now, USDC issuer Circle is getting its own blockchain with investment and testnet participation from AWS, Anthropic, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Visa, etc. How do people still believe in the Stablecoin/RWA narrative? > ETH is a Network Utility Token. That is all ETH is. It's competing with a many competing network utility tokens and many networks and L2s. **These networks are increasingly going to be rails for stablecoins and such (97% of RWA are just stablecoins) and in order for the network to remain competitive they need to remain cheap. ETH is utility of being a rail for tokenized assets doesn't give it a $500 Billion marketcap** -- ETHs value is derived from the money and investors that the pet rock brings. **(November 2024)** https://np.reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/1gq6ahm/daily_general_discussion_november_13_2024/lwyql0 > in order to compete with other chains, Ethereum will have to scale and that has seen the rise of L2/sidechains which results in loss transaction fees and MEV tips essentially stealing value from ETH. **This essentially turns Ethereum, Solana, BSC, Tron, L2/Sidechains, etc into competing networks for DeFi casinos and rails for StablecCoin transfers where they have to remain cheap** or utility and users will move to competing chains. **(September 2024)** https://np.reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/1f9ef5k/daily_general_discussion_september_5_2024/llmkgtm/

dunnkw

Will you expand a little on your use of the USDC loans please? I haven’t fooled with any of that in years since NEXO kicked the Americans out and I’m curious how folks are doing it now.

morrisdev

Consider anything you put in gone forever, then if you win, it's like the damn lottery. I came up quite ahead before I bought my house, but I certainly wasn't counting on it. Oh... No alt coins ever made me real money. Some with ADA, but I no longer have high hopes for that. Eth and BTC are pretty much it. I still use USDC loans like a savings account. (Still better than any CD )

Ajfox1974

Sell, put my profit into USDC, and wait for the next significant drop, and ride it back up to redeploy.

Prior_Parsley3960

# Elizabeth Warren Pressures Meta Over Stablecoin Plans Ahead of Crypto Bill Vote * Elizabeth Warren is demanding that [Meta](https://about.meta.com?utm_source=chatgpt.com) fully disclose its stablecoin ambitions before Congress votes on major crypto legislation. * Warren warned that Meta’s scale — roughly **3.5 billion users** across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger — could give the company enormous influence over digital payments and crypto markets. # What Triggered the Concern * Meta recently launched creator payouts using **USDC** through integrations with: * USDC * Solana * Polygon * [Stripe](https://stripe.com?utm_source=chatgpt.com) * Reports also suggest Meta plans broader stablecoin payment integrations later this year. Meta says it is **not issuing its own stablecoin**, distancing itself from its failed 2019 Libra initiative. # Why Warren Is Concerned Warren argues Meta could: * steer users toward preferred stablecoins, * influence competition in payments, * collect sensitive financial data, * and become systemically important to financial infrastructure. She is asking Meta to disclose: * partnerships with stablecoin issuers, * revenue-sharing arrangements, * privacy protections, * and whether stablecoins will receive preferential treatment inside Meta apps.

ImaginaryActuator895

the infrastructure point at the end is the part most people are gonna gloss over but it's the real thesis here imo. everyone debates USDC vs USDT vs whatever yuan token Beijing might cook up, but the actual value capture is in whatever moves all of them reliably. couple projects working on the cross-token cross-chain routing layer (eco is one). starts to matter more as the issuer count grows. the capital controls thing is the real bottleneck for China tho. you cant have a stablecoin that works globally while also controlling who can move money out. those two things are fundamentally at odds and i dont think Beijing has figured out how to square that circle yet.

Choice_Potato_6279

I checked the articles on that timeline and almost none of them actually mention Ethereum. This site is doing the same thing we saw in 2017, listing every corporate blockchain experiment, stablecoin, or tokenization pilot and implying it all runs on ETH. When you read the sources, most of these projects are: • using private/permissioned chains • using their own in‑house ledgers • using bank‑issued stablecoins • using generic “blockchain” infrastructure • or just integrating USDC/MetaMask and getting counted as “built on Ethereum” If even a fraction of these companies were truly settling on Ethereum L1 or paying meaningful fees, ETH wouldn’t be struggling price‑wise. The market would price in real demand for blockspace. But just like the 2017 ICO era, most of these “partnerships” don’t translate into on‑chain activity, gas usage, or value capture for ETH holders. It’s mostly narrative, not actual economic adoption.

50sat

These days, I'm not even clicking on a link like that. I just convert to USDC on chain and Coinbase out. * Gas to send to CB. * No fee I think to convert USDC to USD at CB. * No fee to ACH. I've done so for a long time. My bank usually credits me same or next day. To be fair, I've used Coinbase since it was literally an offramp where the only 'exchange' was BTC to fiat. It has not been a flawless experience, and I lost my authenticator once. It was excruciating but they worked through it. At the end of the day it's a long term relationship partly based in trust and partly based in regulation. **They make literally nothing** when I pass through them as an offramp and still have zero incentive to scam me.

MariachiArchery

About a month before this crash, I was researching savings products to park some money. I needed to either get the money in the market, or put it in a savings product. I was earning interest on CB via USDC deposits, but was wondering if I could be earning more with another crypto product. This brought me to the Anchor Protocol. A savings product. That is how this was sold to 'investors' as a savings product. Now, a savings product should be zero risk, or close to it. Like a HYSA, a CD, or T bonds. Zero risk, low yield. But, Anchor was different. It advertised zero risk on 20% yield. This interest rate on zero risk is impossible. It literally doesn't exist. So, I asked myself, what is the catch here? Where is the risk? 20% yield with no risk isn't real. So, I wondered into the Anchor subreddit and asked around. "Hey boys, what is the catch? Where is the risk? This can't be real, there is no such thing as a savings product that earns 20%." When I posted this in the sub, I was inundated with comments insisting it was actually zero risk. No risk. It's a savings product. I had guys telling me to park my life's savings, that I would be stupid not to... on and on. I tried to insist this can't be real. That this isn't a savings product, there must be a catch. I also watched that stupid video that put out that explained the peg and the how the yield was earned, which made no fucking sense, and asked the sub to explain it, like I'm five, and no could. No one even tried to understand it. They just blinded trusted that Anchor was a zero risk 20% interest savings product. Failing to understand the product in any way, I warned the group. "Boys, this is too good to be true". Then, I got flamed, so I checked out. This isn't for me. About two weeks later, LUNA minted 6 trillion tokens, and it all collapsed. Watched it happen in real time, in that Anchor sub, as people desperately tried to exit, but couldn't. I watched those dudes loose everything. Moral of the story? If it's too good to be true, it's not true.

I_Walk_Slow

Makes sense, USDC on Solana is very easy and inexpensive. Perfect for AI agents to use.

krevdditn

Well there goes zero fees for USDC and base assets….

chillinewman

Ok l, but still. "As of mid-2026, USDS (Sky Protocol), the successor to DAI, does not currently have a direct "freeze" function in its core smart contract that allows a single entity to unilaterally block funds, unlike centralized stablecoins such as USDC or USDT."

SirArthurPT

In this case is different. USDT falls into deep shitcoins status, like USDC and many other so called "stable coins". They can remotely freeze funds, so even with your keys you can't do anything.

hpbobc

do not sign up for give a ways, credit cards or debt cards on any coin site, they are not a bank. i use pay pal to fund my trading and not link my bank, been using pay pal for decades. make small transactions at the beginning, if you send or receive coin to another wallet, i have found it is easier to send USDC (same as cash) and USDT is a cash coin tether. make your coin buy or trade then go to etherscan and look up your. Transaction Hash: it will look like this 0xda90edb9afbbf29228443f614b21d65fccea8801fcaecc0417f037f6f518bfdb your site or hot wallet address will look like so 0xee7ae85f2fe2239e27d9c1e23fffe168d63b4055 you can look up and keep track of both on etherscan and 2 or 3 other like etherscan that shows most Transactions.

MadSL1m

On the bridging pain, that's structural to Gnosis Pay because the Safe lives on Gnosis Chain. Wrappers like Picnic, Rebind, Zeal don't fix it. They point at the same Safe contracts and just dress up the UI. So if you're already on direct Gnosis Pay, switching to those is mostly cosmetic. Closest non-Gnosis self-custody card I've seen is Solflare on Solana. USDC stays in your Solflare wallet and only leaves on-chain at the swipe. No bridging because the spending wallet is on the same chain you're already holding USDC on. Catch is it's UK and EEA only at launch (rolled out late 2025), Mastercard rails, and there's a 1% Solflare fee on top of the FX spread. Re [Ether.fi](http://Ether.fi), alterise's read on the key situation matches what I've heard. The Gnosis Safe setup there isn't the same as a single-sig wallet you fully control.

ambarcapoor

Wow. For someone who has dabbled in crypto from the early days, including losing the keys to 2x Btc 3x ETH, lol, this was a really fascinating catch up on everything she a look behind the scenes. Thank you very much! I always believed crypto would be the future of how we exchange value, but my timetable was wrong. Looks like it will take longer than I expected. I wonder if I should just buy USDC and forget about it until needed... Thanks again for such a great article.

Odd_Major6399

Check out Meow because they do US banking for offshore entities with native USDC and USDT support on Solana and Ethereum. No fees on stablecoin payments and FDIC insured accounts with wire and ACH. A couple funds in our network use them

mano990502

been using COCA as a daily card for over a year, solid card with 6% cashback in USDC, APY and EUR IBAN. worth looking at if you want daily spending with rewards

kitastrophae

“Blockchain data later showed that funds linked to Grok’s wallet were returned and converted into other assets, including Ethereum and USDC.” Interesting.

Much_Ad6490

Anyone see this bit at the end? “Blockchain data later showed that funds linked to Grok’s wallet were returned and converted into other assets, including Ethereum and USDC.”

iEatSwampAss

The wallet belonged to Groks’ X account but was provisioned/controlled by Bankr. It held ~$200K in DRB tokens that it accumulated from swap fees. The direct loser was Grok’s wallet but… massive collateral damage to DRB holders when the attacker dumped the tokens and crashed the price 40%. Hacker & Bankr worked together to return 80% of the USDC value, attacker kept 20% as a bug bounty. Bankr was treating Grok’s public replies as executable commands. Massive yikes

markphillips401

Fund a Bitunix futures account with USDC or T, slide the leverage all the way right, and proceed to trade.

Turbulent-Peace-8772

Programmable money was never really about "nobody owns the rails" — rails were always going to standardize around USD because that's what people actually use. What's getting distributed is the layer above the rails: the markets, the lending books, the prediction platforms, the perp DEXes. Polymarket settles on USDC; the rails are centralized but the market structure isn't. The 2022 lesson wasn't "DeFi failed" either — it was institutions don't want permissionless and never did. Two stacks coexisting was always the endgame: TradFi-flavored institutional layer for entities that need standardized docs, permissionless layer for everyone the first one excludes. The Miami conference is just one of those stacks talking to itself.

mralderson

Anyone looking at Purch? Made quite a good run up and is the only agentic protocol that got a direct shout out from USDC ceo

winphan

1. I think Solana has pegged ZEC. If you have USDC on Sol or any other token on SOL, you can swap for pegged ZEC. 2. If you have USDT or USDC, there are several exchange websites that let you swap between cryptos for a small fee without KYC.

partytime555

Just split it 50/50 with usdc and add it to a BTC/USDC liquidity pool.

Kurosaki56843

The phrase that matters here is "economically or functionally equivalent to bank deposit interest." That's exactly where all of this falls apart. Banks are paying what, 0.5% on deposits if you're lucky? Meanwhile they lend your money out at 7% and pocket the difference. That's the product they're trying to protect with this regulation - a terrible deal that only survives because most people don't know there are alternatives. I keep my stables on Nexo and I'm earning 9.5% on USDC right now. That's not equivalent to a bank deposit, that's not even remotely in the same universe... This whole law is basically admitting banks can't compete on rates so they need legislation to keep people from leaving. If your product needs a regulation to stop customers from choosing something better, maybe the product is the problem.

EndSmugnorance

Isn’t Polygon largely held up by Polymarket and USDC on poly network?

Atmacrush

From what i interpreted, you cannot earn yield via letting USDC sit on their exchange. The one way I know ppl can still earn yield is by lending the usdc so its actively doing something.

Seisouhen

It might not effect them too much, just that for US clients they may not be able to get paid in-kind like the usdc interest, won't be paid in USDC or you'll have to do something else to get "rewards"

csfrayer

That clearly falls within expressly permitted activities as your USDC is at credit risk when it's lent.

csfrayer

I don't see any ban on them using the term yield, either. The kind of arrangement it prohibits is Coinbase just declaring a yield rate percentage and paying that out of the general profit-making venture of the company. Much like staking as a service, they have to pool the stablecoins they are custodying for customers in order to fund permissible activities from which they distribute yield. The one thing Coinbase does that looks to be specifically prohibited under this is to distribute yield from the profit-sharing arrangement it has with Circle re USDC. I don't think Coinbase's ownership stake in or incentive payments from Circle can meet the permissible activity tests. Even then, given the fungibility of assets inside a financial institution, even this limited restriction is going to be near impossible to enforce.

cryptolipto

It means you can legally earn staking rewards and interest from lending out crypto assets such as stablecoins. This is good enough to preserve most rewards that exist in crypto currently. It will prohibit coinbase giving out rewards from simply holding USDC in coinbase tho, but there could be a workaround on that I’m sure

Qzzn

Coinbase agreed to ban stablecoin yield so they can keep the t-bill interest themselves. They lobbied for the exact regulation that benefits them most and then called it a compromise, so the real winners here are Circle and Coinbase shareholders, not people holding USDC

frozengrandmatetris

they will subsidize transactions on their platforms involving USDC. they already do this somewhat, by letting people withdraw USDC to most networks without paying a withdrawal fee. I could see them dropping the maker and taker fees for all their USDC trading pairs too

Drumroll-PH

The spending use case for stablecoins is real, and the infrastructure is catching up faster than most people expected. EtherFi's Cash Card is one of the more interesting setups for this, you spend USDC on a Visa, get 3% back in wETH, and your assets stay non-custodial throughout. for high-inflation regions where people are already thinking in dollars, that combination of stable denomination plus yield on the cashback is actually pretty compelling.

604pleb

They lent out assets that they acquired by enticing users with non-generative BTC yield BTC has no yield USDC has no Yield USD has yield USD and USDC are not the same A company taking your dollar and giving you a ticket for “1 company dollar” while packing their coffers has worked well for the end user 0 times.